COTTON

Cotton, Gossypium hirsutum L., was introduced
to the High Plains of Texas near Lubbock
in 1901. That year, Will Florence, who
had migrated from Stonewall County, Texas,
planted ten acres and harvested two bales. By
1928, 1.6 million acres of cotton were being
grown in the eighteen counties surrounding
Lubbock. Cotton has since become a major
commodity on the High Plains of Texas, Oklahoma,
and New Mexico, with minor acreage
in Kansas. Approximately five million acres
are planted each year in the Southern Great
Plains. Because of drought, hail, or other production
hazards, only about 80 percent of
planted acres are harvested each year. Lint
yields range from 125 pounds per acre, when
grown without supplemental irrigation, to
1,000 pounds per acre when grown with irrigation.
About 40 percent of the cotton grown
on the Southern Great Plains is irrigated. Production
hazards include abiotic factors such
as drought, hail, excess rainfall, heat, cold,
and blowing sand. Biotic production hazards
include weed competition; insects such as
aphids (Aphid gossypii Glover), bollworm
(Helicoverpa zea Boddie), and boll weevil
(Anthonomus grandis Boheman); seedling diseases;
verticillium wilt (Verticillium dahliae);
and rootknot nematode (Meloidogyne incognita).

Cotton evolved in Mexico and was introduced
to the continental United States by Native
Americans in present-day New Mexico,
hundreds of years before Europeans arrived
on the continent. The Spanish grew cotton in
Florida in 1556, and cotton culture was reported
in Virginia in 1621, North Carolina in
1664, Louisiana in 1697, Mississippi in 1722,
Alabama in 1728, Georgia in 1734, and southeast
Texas in 1821. The establishment of cotton
culture on the Plains had much to do with
invasion of the Mexican boll weevil into Texas
in 1892. During the ensuing three decades, entrepreneurial
cotton producers moved to the
Southern Great Plains and the Southwest in
efforts to find a region where the boll weevil
could not survive. This strategy worked well
for West Texas and Oklahoma until the 1990s,
when the boll weevil became established on
the High Plains of Texas. The producer-driven
boll weevil eradication program promises to
rid the United States of this devastating pest.

Cotton is planted when the soil temperature
at planting depth reaches 65ºF at 10 A.M.
for three consecutive days, combined with a
favorable, long-range forecast. Thus, the majority
of cotton on the Southern Great Plains
is planted in May and early June. Given favorable
temperatures, moisture, and nutrients,
the cotton plant will produce its first fruit
form, or flower bud–also called a square–
about thirty-five days after planting, its first
open flower about sixty days after planting,
and its first open boll about 100 days after
planting. Cotton is a botanically indeterminate
plant that continues to grow vegetatively
while growing reproductively. With a normal
weather pattern, cotton production on the
Southern Great Plains requires about 140 days
from planting to maturity.

The mature cotton plant is treated with a
chemical defoliant to remove the leaves, a
source of trash that would lower the quality
and value of the harvested product. Southern
Great Plains producers then may apply a desiccant
to dry the plants, thus making them more
brittle in preparation for harvest. While most
U.S. cotton is harvested by a spindle picker
that theoretically removes only seedcotton,
most of the Southern Great Plains crop is harvested
with a stripper machine that removes
seedcotton, burs (structures that encase the
seedcotton), unopened bolls, and sometimes
other plant structures such as branches or
bark. This type of harvester is required because
Southern Great Plains producers plant
cultivars that have "storm-proof" bolls. Such
cultivars have open bolls (e.g., mature bolls
ready for harvest) where the seedcotton does
not fluff and the dry boll structure remains
relatively closed at maturity, thus preventing
the seedcotton from shattering during high
winds and other inclement weather.

Seedcotton, containing both lint and seeds,
is taken from the farm to a gin where the seeds
and lint are separated. Gin-run seeds are composed
of three products: linters, hulls, and
kernels. Linters are short fibers that did not
elongate into spinnable fibers and the stubble
of longer fibers removed in the ginning process.
Linters are used in a number of products,
including plastics, solid rocket propellants,
rayon, paints, and photographic film. Linters
are removed as a by-product of the crushing
process to produce cottonseed oil. This oil is
used as cooking oil and in a number of processed
products such as mayonnaise and salad
dressing. The remaining hulls are used as filler
in feed, mulch, and poultry litter. The meal
and cake remaining after oil extraction is
used in fertilizer and feed. In 2000 most of the
cottonseeds produced in the Southern Great
Plains were used as direct feed for cattle. Cottonseeds,
regardless of marketing channel,
make up about 10 percent of the farm value of
the crop.

The primary product of cotton production
is its spinnable fibers, or lint. These fibers
comprise about 33 percent of the weight of
seedcotton. Lint is packaged at the gin into
480-pound bales and transported to mills that
combine bales from around the world having
similar and desired quality parameters for the
mill's yarn product. The raw cotton is spun
into 100 percent cotton yarn or combined
with man-made fibers or other natural fibers
to produce blended yarns. These yarns are
then woven into a number of products, from
diapers to designer wear.

The cotton industry in the United States
yielded more than $40 billion in revenue in
1997. This industry involved over 38,000 businesses
(of which 35,000 were farms) that employed
more than 443,000 people. In Texas,
Oklahoma, and New Mexico, 14,185 businesses
(including 13,422 farms) employing 71,909 individuals
were involved in cotton production
and processing in 1997, generating $4.5 billion
in revenue.